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Nathan_A's Vintage Computing Curios

Nathan_A

Well-known member
Well, I'm finally getting around to cataloging all the things I've acquired over the course of the last year or so. I dove into vintage computing stuff as a pandemic hobby. It all started with purchasing a NeXTstation Turbo and an HP 48GX, and then it spiraled out of control as evidenced by my office being entirely overtaken by boxes, computers, and parts. The "Expansion Cards" and "Processors" sheets in particular highlight that I might have something of a problem. :)

After I get through the cataloging effort I'm going to take a bunch of photos, make Google Photos albums out of them, add the links to the spreadsheets, and then also come and post details and pictures here in follow-up posts (especially for some of the rarer & weirder things). I've taken a bunch of photos already, but they're not well organized. I've also run some benchmarks of various sorts with many of these things, but all the benchmark results files & screenshots are going to take some dedicated time to pull off of their respective machines, so that I can properly include them here and in the spreadsheet.

As things unfold, I'll keep updating this thread.

 

Nathan_A

Well-known member
Behold! The Radius Thunder 3D. A hopeful entry into the PCI 3D workstation market. I've wanted one of these things for about 25 years, and I finally got one. It has a 3Dlabs GLINT 500TX and GLINT Delta chipset on it. The only rarer bird of this ilk that I can think of is the Newer Technology RenderPix card which was similar but had dual 500TX chips!

Radius Thunder 3D (front).jpg Radius Thunder 3D (back).jpg
I'm thinking about putting this into my PowerCenter 150 along side a Radius ThunderColor 30/1600 (w/ 4x DSP) since a 150 MHz 604 seems roughly era appropriate for this thing. Maybe add in either the Apple Pentium 100 or 5x86 PC-compatibility card. Even better would be if I could ever get my hands on a PCI Radius VideoVision board. The perfect low-profile versatile "sleeper" workstation.
 

volvo242gt

Well-known member
Ah, another HP48GX owner... I've had mine since 1995... Need to replace the battery contact that bridges between the two batteries on the side that doesn't have the board contacts, since I apparently forgot to remove the batteries I installed in it a few years ago. Luckily, the board contacts are fine.
 

Nathan_A

Well-known member
Also in the vein of the earliest 3D accelerators available for the Macintosh... the Apple QuickDraw 3D Accelerator Card. Here's an excellent thread from a few years back on VOGONS that dug up a lot of excellent details and did some fairly detailed testing and comparisons: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=47355

The card appears to have actually been a solid performer for its time!

Apple QuickDraw 3D Accelerator (front).jpg Apple QuickDraw 3D Accelerator (back).jpg
 

jeremywork

Well-known member
Also in the vein of the earliest 3D accelerators available for the Macintosh... the Apple QuickDraw 3D Accelerator Card. Here's an excellent thread from a few years back on VOGONS that dug up a lot of excellent details and did some fairly detailed testing and comparisons: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=47355

The card appears to have actually been a solid performer for its time!

View attachment 41099 View attachment 41100
This one yours?
They can scale with multiples installed too...

There was a pretty nice thread here recently:

 

Nathan_A

Well-known member
Yep, that one is mine.

I vaguely recalled that you could use multiple cards back when they were originally released. Mostly what I remember though was running "Gerbils" in software rendering mode back in the day and thinking how amazing it must have been to have silky smooth "hi-res" Gerbils performance. :giggle:
 

Nathan_A

Well-known member
Speaking of making a "sleeper" workstation, here's the Radius ThunderColor 30/1600 (w/ 4x DSP board). Including the original box and all the goodies.

Radius ThunderColor 30_1600 (front & box).jpg Radius ThunderColor 30_1600 (back & box).jpg Radius ThunderColor 30_1600 (separated).jpg

I also have a working 30/1152 version of this card, but without the box, etc. At some point I should probably trade or sell the 30/1152. I always wonder what that big unpopulated section of the DSP daughterboard was for. It look like it's laid out to take another Radius IC and some RAM or something.
 

jeremywork

Well-known member
Speaking of making a "sleeper" workstation, here's the Radius ThunderColor 30/1600 (w/ 4x DSP board). Including the original box and all the goodies.
This is an interesting one too. I've wondered why these DSPs presumably work on PowerPCs, while nearly all the Nubus DSP boards will only run under 68k hosts (except the PowerShop card, and maybe other obscure cases.)
 

Nathan_A

Well-known member
Taking a little break from graphics & PCI stuff to enjoy some choice 90's era beats, or at least the tools used to produce them... a Digidesign Audiomedia II w/ Sound Designer II.

Digidesign Audiomedia II (front & box).jpg Digidesign Audiomedia II (front).jpg Digidesign Audiomedia II (back).jpg

This guy usually lives in my 8100/100. Thanks to some help from @cheesestraws it's going to get some company from a fancy Nubus graphics + DSP accelerator card too. I need to decide what goes into the 3rd Nubus slot of that brittle beast. The PDS slot is spoken for. I was going to plop a G3 upgrade in there, but opted for something else for reasons which will become clear later.
 

Nathan_A

Well-known member
This is an interesting one too. I've wondered why these DSPs presumably work on PowerPCs, while nearly all the Nubus DSP boards will only run under 68k hosts (except the PowerShop card, and maybe other obscure cases.)
Is that a thing? I didn't realize that. I haven't tried yet, but I am currently expecting my SuperMac Thunder/24 + DSP to work properly in my 8100/100 despite it being a PowerPC machine. I suppose I shall find out if that's true or not relatively soon.
 

jeremywork

Well-known member
Is that a thing? I didn't realize that. I haven't tried yet, but I am currently expecting my SuperMac Thunder/24 + DSP to work properly in my 8100/100 despite it being a PowerPC machine. I suppose I shall find out if that's true or not relatively soon.
Pretty sure the DSP extension only runs in 68k, same with the Thunder IV GX cards. It won't cause a problem to still be populated on the Thunder/24, just remains inactive. But if you can crack open the extension for the ThunderColor card, it may be possible to get that one to recognize the older cards under PowerPC.
 

Nathan_A

Well-known member
Huh. Interesting. I had a Thunder IV GX in an overclocked and L2 cache upgraded 6100/60 way back in the day. It think I got it for a couple hundred $$$ back then after everyone had moved on to PCI, but before I was able to buy my first PowerComputing PCI-based clone. I ended up selling it after it turned out to be slower than the pitiful DRAM video for the thing I cared most about at the time... Marathon, Doom, and Dark Forces. Now of course I really wish I hadn't done that.

I honestly don't remember if the DSPs worked or not, but I swear there was a "(PPC)" version of all the Photoshop and Kai's plugins. 🤔
 

jeremywork

Well-known member
I could be wrong; I haven't personally tried it. I just remember seeing such a note throughout various documentation for those combo cards.
 

Nathan_A

Well-known member
I could be wrong; I haven't personally tried it. I just remember seeing such a note throughout various documentation for those combo cards.
Hmmm... well my DSP upgrade is still brand new sealed. If it's not going to work, then I may elect to leave it that way. 🤔
 

kkritsilas

Well-known member
Ah, another HP48GX owner... I've had mine since 1995... Need to replace the battery contact that bridges between the two batteries on the side that doesn't have the board contacts, since I apparently forgot to remove the batteries I installed in it a few years ago. Luckily, the board contacts are fine.

I have a few calculators, from both the HP and TI tribes. The HPs are a HP-35. HP=45, HP-55 (bad keyboard, but otherwise functional), HP-65, HP-67 (functional, but card reader doesn't work), HP-97 (X2, including one with a third party BCD interface), HP29C (non-fuctional), HP-41CX (X2), HP-48SX, HP48-GX, HP-49 (Champaigne) and HP35S. TIs are 2 X TI-58. 2X TI-58C (one non-functional), TI-59 (card reader non-fuvncional), TI-60, TI-66, and 3 PC-100 family printers. I also have the HP-82143 Printer for the HP-41, and an HP-82240A IR interface printer for the HP=48 Family calculators (amongst others).
 

Nathan_A

Well-known member
Ah, another HP48GX owner... I've had mine since 1995... Need to replace the battery contact that bridges between the two batteries on the side that doesn't have the board contacts, since I apparently forgot to remove the batteries I installed in it a few years ago. Luckily, the board contacts are fine.
Yeah! I have the IR printer for it too and all the original manuals and advanced programming manual.

When I was a teenager I had the 48G (still have it and it also still works), but I always lusted after the 48GX. When the pandemic started and I decided that I was going to start my vintage computing hobby getting a proper 48GX was one of the very first acquisitions I made. 😀
 

jeremywork

Well-known member
Hmmm... well my DSP upgrade is still brand new sealed. If it's not going to work, then I may elect to leave it that way. 🤔
I’ve got a Thunder/24 with IPA board, and a PowerPro nearby. I’ll see if I can make the DSPs run, and if not we can see what drivers make the ThunderColor tick and try those.
 

jeremywork

Well-known member
Oops, I misremembered. They’re just incompatible with PowerPC upgrade cards. Low End Mac does assert the PowerPC machines being slower with the dual DSP cards enabled, however. The quads may be a different story, and LEM could be inaccurate on this.
 

volvo242gt

Well-known member
Yeah! I have the IR printer for it too and all the original manuals and advanced programming manual.

When I was a teenager I had the 48G (still have it and it also still works), but I always lusted after the 48GX. When the pandemic started and I decided that I was going to start my vintage computing hobby getting a proper 48GX was one of the very first acquisitions I made. 😀
Nice. Somewhere, I think I still have the mini-8 DIN to HP48 serial cable. Still have the floppy disk that came with the cable. Although, I think the disk became corrupted. I'll have to try it again and see if either the IIci or the SE will read it.

Started out with an HP32SII in high school (late 1991ish), then got the HP48S for college in the fall of 1992. Soon replaced that with an HP48SX so I could use the Chemistry Equation Library card. In early 1995, said calculator was stolen out of my backpack. Had to replace it with the 48GX that I own today. Thinking I might pick up an HP48SX, in addition to a junker HP48 that would be used to fix the 48GX.
 

Nathan_A

Well-known member
I have one SE/30 that I actually use and one spare that I'll probably sell after I get it recapped. I also have too many possible ways to give them Ethernet network connectivity. I really should relieve myself of most of these at some point.

Like an Asante MacCon+ SE 30/Et...

Asante MacCon+ SE 30⁄Et (front).jpg Asante MacCon+ SE 30⁄Et (back).jpg

...and an Asante MacCon+ TK/TP...

Asante MacCon+ TK⁄TP (front).jpg Asante MacCon+ TK⁄TP (back).jpg

...and a Novell Etherport SE30...

Novell Etherport SE30 (front).jpg Novell Etherport SE30 (back).jpg

...none of which I need anymore because all my connectivity needs are splendidly provided by this fantastic piece of tech from @Bolle... BolleMac ComboCon30, so cool...

BolleMac ComboCon30 (front).jpg BolleMac ComboCon30 (back).jpg

This last fella goes in my SE/30 and gives it not only Ethernet, but also allows simultaneous use of a 24-bit 640x480 display output card and a 33 MHz 68030 + L2 cache accelerator. Again, so cool.
 
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